Apple Is Repeating Itself: Last Year It Said It Was 'Blown Away' By iPhone 4S Pre-Orders, Too

When Apple told news outlets it was “blown away” by iPhone 5 pre-orders, something about it didn’t sit right with us. There was something familiar about it, but it rang more hollow than usual from Apple.We think we’ve figured out why. The language Apple used to describe pre-orders of the iPhone 5 is almost the exact same language it used to describe pre-orders of the iPhone 4S.

Here’s today’s statement: “Pre-orders for iPhone 5 have been incredible … We’ve been completely blown away by the customer response.”

There’s a key difference between this year’s statement and last year’s and it might explain why something felt off.

Last year Apple’s statement was part of bigger press release. This year’s statement wasn’t a press release, just two sentences given to certain news outlets.

And last year’s press release had numbers attached to it. Apple announced pre-orders of 1 million iPhone 4Ss, “the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched,” as SVP of marketing Phil Schiller put it in the release.